Adobe Reader 9.1 for Linux

The new version 9.1 of Adobe Reader brings some improvements regarding the command line interface and printing features.

Adobe now provides its PDF reader in a Linux version for 9.1. The release plugs some security holes and provides a few new features. Among them is tabbed viewing of multiple PDFs and detaching them to separate windows. The software also has a faster launch and performance and more intuitive user interfaces.

Printing improvements were high among developer focus. The advanced print dialog now includes printing as image and Acrobat color management. A printer properties dialog provides all printer driver options and the command line now includes all options found in the print dialog.

The Reader also works over pure IPv6 as well as mixed networks. Users on Acrobat.com can upload and share documents from within the UI. Some of the bugs fixed include font caching at startup and the interface with RealPlayer. Piping PDFs through input stream via cat pdffile.pdf | acroread - is also now possible.

A new de-installer makes it easy to wipe the entire package from the hard drive, although necessary only for 48-MByte binary installations off the Adobe website. Linux downloads of the Reader come as .bin, .tar, .rpm, or .deb versions, the latter two installable over the package manager. Details on the new Reader are here.

Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco 2009, chief security officer of F-Secure, Mikko Hypponen, advised against the use of Adobe's Acrobat and recommended users switch to an open source PDF reader.